California Drones Mystery Solved By Sarah Connor Chronicles?

The mid season finale of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (TSCC) threw me something to chew on Monday night that I was surprised to see. Was TSCC yet one more project that was bitten by the writers strike? When the heck are we gonna stop seeing ramifications from that event? Cripes!

Confused? Good… Keep reading my Tarantino-ish outline of this event.

In Monday night’s episode, Sarah is chasing her “three dots” clue and ends up going to a UFO convention. There, she meets a “woman” who has pictures plastered all over “her” home’s walls. The interesting thing about that is that I recognized those pictures and said, “Hey! I know those pictures! Those are the California Drones that Raji posted in 2007!” Yes, I’m a bit of a UFO non-disbeliever with a freaky memory!

Flashback – Mid 2007:

An internet user by the name of raji (Other surmised aliases: raji1977, Rajinder Satyanarayana) has laid claim to not only observing a UFO, but taking high quality pictures of the thing as it went over himself and some power lines. The pictures were taken in a town called Capitola, CA. which isn’t that far from where I live, and about 3 miles South of Santa Cruz, CA.. The pictures were incredibly detailed, well focused and if this wasn’t proof… well then, what is?

Curious item #1: The photographs were put out on Craigslist of all places. Not a UFO forum, but a public, generic website. After posting the images, “Raji” disappeared. After that, a few other folks posted images of their own of similar craft that have been spotted around CA. These craft have been dubbed the California Drones.

Background event to keep in mind: The writers strike started on November 5, 2007 and ended on February 12, 2008.

January, 2008:

A woman from London contacted a couple of private investigators to try and locate this Raji person. As their quest proceeded, they started working from the presumption that if they found the telephone poles, they might find the area where this “Raji” lives. I don’t buy that. Why? If I took the pics in Capitola, I would have been passing through. I live in Menlo Park, on the other side of the mountain in the Bay Area. I’ll call this Curious item #2.

The two investigators either found or were contacted by a man named Isaac who claimed that he was part of a top-secret government program in Palo Alto, CA – which devised commercial technology from extraterrestrial artifacts confiscated by U.S. scientists. (I guess Isaac has seen Men In Black.) More importantly, he knew about the craft. (Cue the X-Files music please!)

It’s a great story on the LA Times website, but it sure did not say much. There’s even YouTube footage of a Fox news program called America’s Newsroom, which interviewed the two PI’s. Yep, it’s a real program. The PI’s put together a web page on their site for their investigation: TK Davis Investigations.

MORE RECENT DAYS:

Despite the fact that I do believe, (just not sure in what), a lot of folk on the internet make a hell of a lot of conjecture about things. They pull facts and conjecture from every direction, pile them in a blender that’s set to stun and turn it on without the lid! I say that because stunned is what I got.

There are so many ideas out there about these “California Drones” that it gets very confusing. I filtered through literally hundreds of images, sites and conjectures to the point of stumbling through the day cross-eyed and even ending up at one of my own sites where I wrote an article about how UFO’s capture our imaginations. From sites debunking the UFO, to sites supporting it, I toiled. Some sites had well presented and lengthy documentation. Other sites had forums with over 100+ pages of premises, conjectures and interpersonal angst.

The Drone Research Team put together some of the original images that raji posted on Craigslist and has a collection of other images from other “witnesses.” That “Isaac” fella put together a pretty comprehensive collection of information about this classified work and has some incredibly detailed images, scans, etc… which I will call Curious item #3! The sites are Isaaccaret.com and a second supporting site. The interesting (should I say Curious Item #4?) is that the Isaaccaret site has a page with the title/name of “Replicant.” Hmm.

I’ve done all this for you, the Screen Rant readers, at the risk of being abducted by government conspirators and the greys. Not to mention I was tremendously curious!

TODAY:

Today I’m exhausted from chasing my own tail!!

The end of Sarah Connor Chronicles‘ episode had Sarah laying on the ground stunned, looking up at what looked like a UFO coming down to say hi to our dazed heroine. That’s when I said, HAH! Scared the crap out of my wife. But the craft in the end scene was a combined derivative of the California Drones with identical details.

After some I.P. forensic sleuthing, I can’t add any info about who may own the websites. I’ve left messages with FOX Networks but they’re busy and I haven’t heard back from them. But here’s what I believe to be the conjoined answer to both entities, the CA Drones, Sarah’s three dots and her hovering drone in the final scenes of the mid-season finale:

FOX Networks is run by aliens!

OR

They were getting completely behind their product, The Sarah Connor Chronicles, by ramping up a viral advertising campaign that would draw the public into their show. With the right public momentum, the gimmick would have netted them some serious press coverage and ratings. But the project got snuffed when the writers’ strike hit. That pushed back the airing date of this mid-season finale episode, and Fox moved on. In their wake, they forgot to let on about it and left the hundreds of UFO-ologists spinning up hundreds of thousands of hours combing over the Drones evidence and tossing out their conjectures.

Below, I present the pictures for your review… To all the folks who dropped many an hour into this phenom, I do apologize, but I think you were taken by a pretty cool marketing scheme.

Did Fox perpetrate the viral ad gone south, or did they take advantage of something that is out in the public domain and made it their own, risking possible legal issues?

I say the former.

The prosecution rests!

UPDATE 12/24/08: The prosecution would appear to have been wrong! I’ve been in communication with Josh Friedman, the Executive Producer and creator of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles and it would seem that the mysteries of the California Drones will continue to be a mystery for the time being. Josh wrote the following to me:

Bruce–

The drone/CARET materials are not viral marketing for our show. Fox knows nothing about them. I’ve been interested in the drone images for some time and, as I am wont to do, found a way to work areas of interest into the show. Our drone image at the end is a kissing cousin of the others but is of our own design. I don’t want anyone out there who chooses to believe in the drone sightings to feel in any way that their inclusion in TSCC invalidates their point of view. Likewise, any one who believes they are a hoax should not use their inclusion in the show as confirmation of that theory. Simply something in the zeitgeist that I was (and still am) fascinated by. Whether this settles the issue or only serves to incite others who want to use it for their own ends is beyond my control.

Josh Friedman Executive Producer, Creator, TSCC

Our thanks to Josh for helping out this latest chapter of the CA Drones mystery.

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Ash Ali6 years ago

I can’t remember, but I watched a special on either the History Channel, the Sci-Fi Channel, or Discovery Channel that pitted UFO hunters with real experts and they pretty much proved that the photo’s were fake.

I say they ran with what was created for them by C2C, Isaac, Ty, Stephen, etc., etc., etc., and especially the dronies.

It WAS a story, whether true or not, it was a GREAT story and the bulk of it unfolded in the forums.

If I was a producer I would have done it long ago. There’s no viral thing here, just someone with a bright idea to use what was there for the taking.

The DRT and the investigators brought a lot of light to the subject. It was probably about that time frame when their writers said, “hey, let’s do this drone thing”.

I think that’s all it is because there is no risk legally speaking. That story that took place between May and early August of 2007 (predominently) belonged to nobody because nobody was willing to claim it. Then again, it belonged to everybody, especially the dronies.

I sit back and giggle now because after the show I thought about aka: Isaac and what he must be thinking right now since I’m sure he’s heard about what aired. Hoax or not, no glory for him. Instead, he was left out in the cold.

I am a ufo believer and I happen to work in special effects. I have seen “real” ufos and they are actually mundane looking like a simple light in the sky. THESE PHOTOS ARE FAKE, generated in 3D software. UFOS are real, these pictures are NOT

I think had the Writers strike not occured, and if this was indeed a viral campain, that this would have been brilliant. I am a bit of an interesting person when it comes to UFO’s and such, though I believe that it is an intruging concept,i really don’t belive in UFO’s, but i do belive that we are not alone in the universe, I belive that any other species out there would be no more advanced than we are. But thats me. My Best friend (other than my wife) is a member of the paranormal research society up here, and can talk your ear off, we have many a debate about it.

Seems pretty clear to me that either the ‘UFO’ was created by the effects people from the show or the show modeled their drones based on the UFO pics. The similarities are uncanny. I’m leaning towards botched guerrilla advertising. The so-called “spiky things” are what really does it for me.

Ahh the Greys, Whitley streiber signed that contract (sony)for that about the same time he signed for his 2012 (Warners)war for sould quietly on June 15, 2007 less then 2 weeks befor this Drone hoaxers did their release of Isaac aka TSCC abrahaham we saw in tscc. to using the Isaac caret site documents. As to the owner of the site.. Todd Schwartz an oregon Attorney for Carr Butterfield and schwartz , Securities frirm, claimed he set it up. within 7 hours of the Isaac . Oddly , the webmaster Tony Savo, based now in bellingnam WA set up both sites, as well as one for a former Game Maker Sin Games, that went belly up. None of them answer questions.. Neither do the people who helped promoted it c2c Alienware use the original designs and claim intellectual ownership..but will not disavow any connection with viral. TScc just barely modified the same designn..essentially intact, except the letters. If you go to AW latest CGI Breed flick, not the rotating nodes in the film with the 3 dots and the central skull with red Eyes..hmmis T4 being weaved in slowly? AW always has done themed laptops with Warners, superman, simpsons, Dell, did warcraft.. The strikes as I see them essentially want to get some piece of the online ryalties and residuals as well as for integration of stories into games..etc. Thus a viral marketer represents acrually both moviemakers, pc makers, and game makers..its naturally synergistic. Regards All I can’t wait for Camerons Avator,,as well as T4 Cheers Sys

freakyandcloudymemory: Despite my terse recount with the “factual errors” that I took from the very sources all the relevant sites tend to have quoted back and forth, I think the images alone, without the words seem to speak for themselves.

I had quite the time bouncing around the multitude of sites that seemed to claim they were the experts, they knew the facts, etc., etc., it got confusing…

At one point, after following a link to a link to link, I had about 25 tabs of web pages opened… before my brain exploded, I had to start over and started referencing the media sources and branced out from there.

Wow Bruce. I think my brain just exploded too. And I had thought it was just some weird plot twist, not some conspiracy by FOX to hide their failed viral campaign. I still can’t wait till February to find out what the hell that is all about. At the time, I thought it looked kinda like a hybrid between the flying terminator scout ships and some kind of alien craft. I really hope the writers aren’t so desperate for storylines that they would add some type of “terminators began with alien tech” story…

You geeks have got it so wrong! FOX isn’t run by aliens, it is run by killer cyborgs from the future! No duh! NBC is run by aliens, which explains why they’re replacing Leno with Conan O’Brien! CBS is run by werewolves, ABC is run by zombies, and The Sci-Fi channel is run by slavering idiots. Just look at the movies they produce.

The “California Drones” are in fact an advanced, beta-version Veg-A-Matic that has escaped from the K-Tel factory in Taiwan and is ravishing the Central Valley.

Nice bit of detective work. I think that you are correct about the viral ad idea.

It is interesting that even with so much at stake marketers are willing to pirate the UFO matter for their own ends. None of them seem to understand that if aliens are coming here and snatching people in the night without so much as replanting one deforested hill side or leaving a genetically improved grain of rice that will finish in thirty days then we have a real security issue. This barrage of marketing nonsense along with the fact that anyone can find an audience with this topic may be a major obstacle to our own defense in the event that there really are alien incursions taking place. Think about it… global reports of incursions, radar data, some trace evidence and very little more information. Fits the footprint of a stealthy and capable intelligence. General Natnan Twining certainly tasked the USAF to learn everything they could about “Flying Disks” and I am sure that he tasked the new USAF (founded Sept 1947) to do this because the concern was high due to the numerous events witnessed by military personnel. Of course, if you want to see them do everything short of land on the WH lawn see the pics in the Washington Post from 1952 where they are hovering over the US Capital. Check out the history of that incident and then look at what has happened since, policywise, on this topic….

Yah, it’s definitely one of two things: It’s a viral campaign that they forgot about or they contracted someone to make those photos for the sake of the episode. So he “leaked” a few of them online just to stir up the people, basically for the sh**s and giggles.

The thing about the photos is that the powerlines and the object are both focused. You would expect the powerlines to be substantially less focused than the object or vice-versa because they are not close together, the camera would have focused on one or the other.

The thing I never understand about UFO sightings, is why it is always lights in the night sky? I’m not saying I believe we’re alone in the universe, but don’t you think that with all the technology required to fly hundreds or thousands of lightyears, that they would know how to hover around in our atmosphere covertly without blinking or brightly shining lights… Unless they WANT to be seen…

I think daylight sightings are more credible. I also hate those really shaky videos like the person holding the camera has parkinsons or something. You know it’s because it’s a fake and they don’t want to show the object too clearly because it’s some pie plate being hung from a tree or something…

Hi Bruce I see no problem with TV/Movies/pcmakers/game companies borrowing from ufology. Its good business. I do so a problem with them fabricating events and or molding public opinion on any group people, whether considered conspiracy koko koos or not. To me thats no different than someone working in a fire department setting fires to drum up business, or pyromaniacs working as fire personnel. In pursuit of business, TV reporters (I can’t recall if it was 60 minutes or what)once staged an explosion in an auto collision investigation by adding accelerants near the collision point to prove in their report that one of the automakers involved had a faulty vehicle. Not very nice thing to do to either the automaker nor us the public who was taken in by the report. But it was on the screen, and people believe what they see on the screen, because its on the screen. There is implicit trust by the viewer that the presentation is an honest one. I’m a storyteller in a library by trade, and I tell all kinds of fanciful stories. When my kids leave, they know its just a story. Fox may have, like turner broadcasting did in Boston with its viral that backfired, is just making news and helping a warners patner along with whatever in that drone hoax. So, do I take a break ever of course.. Do I acquiesce to News making or helping fabricate news? no. Why its a gas tank then, A drone now, or a WMD like Iraq. There are consequences. Thats why bad haboits like that should be broken early. In the meantime..Enjoy SCC and T4 as I will, , they look so real! As for Fox , their stories are guarnteed, at least as far as the stage set.

Bruce Thanx for reporting this as sites like this are actually the first behind enemy lines so to speak and are a fantastic and valuable resource in helping separate fact from fiction, fantasy from reality, just like Dr.Dils dronehoax site.The hollywood and tv machine complex is, bigger than Skynet for sure,is and you help us in a fun way who the players are. Not to mention the great critiques by the fans here. you certainly made a “believer” (of this site)out of me! keep up the great work cheers Sys